Noul Cod de procedura penala si dreptul la o aparare efectiva
The New Code of Criminal Procedure and the Right to Effective Defence

Summary/Abstract: The present article mainly aims at analysing the concept of effectiveness as regards the suspect or the defendant’s right of defence, a concept recently set out in the Romanian criminal procedure law. Analysing this concept, this article aims at examining the New Criminal Procedure Code to a larger extent, especially as regards its raison d’être. Starting with the definition of effectiveness of the fundamental right to defence, as outlined by the American case-law of the Supreme Court and the European case-law of the European Court of Human Rights, both deeply concerned with ensuring real effectiveness of such right, the article focuses on the former and present regulations in the Penal Code, concluding that the new terminology is rather inexact and, more seriously, there is a lack of normative reality that may account for the adoption of the new concept. According to the new Code, the suspect or defendant’s right to defence seems to have been subject to some sort of restriction or, if not so, it has not been subject to extensive regulation either, which would have corresponded to the effective right to defence that the new Code imposes as one of its principles. Furthermore, the new procedural law seems to take more interest in the efficiency of the criminal trial, in its reasonable length and fast settlement, rather than in the effectiveness of fundamental rights, which is obviously opposed to efficiency. The study thus reaches this bitter conclusion.

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